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In order to further improve the energy conversion efficiency in reciprocating engines, detailed knowledge about the involved processes is required. One major loss source in internal combustion engines is heat loss through the cylinder walls. In order to increase the understanding of heat transfer processes and to validate and generate new heat transfer correlation models it is desirable, or even necessary, to have crank-angle resolved data on in-cylinder wall temperature. Laser-Induced Phosphorescence has proved to be a useful tool for surface thermometry also in such harsh environments as running engines. However, the ceramic structure of most phosphor coatings might introduce an error, due to its thermal insulation properties, when being exposed to rapidly changing temperatures. In this article the measurement technique is evaluated concerning the impact from the thickness of the phosphorescent layer on the measured temperature.

The ability to predict cyclic variations is certainly useful in studying engine operating regimes, especially under unstable operating conditions where one single cycle may differ from another substantially and a single simulation may give rather misleading results. PDF based models such as Stochastic Reactor Models (SRM) are able to model cyclic variations, but these may be overpredicted if discretization is too coarse. The range of cyclic variations and the dependence of the ability to correctly assess their mean values on the number of cycles simulated were investigated. In most cases, the average values were assessed correctly on the basis of as few as 10 cycles, but assessing the complete range of cyclic variations could require a greater number of cycles. In studying average values, variations due too coarse discretization being employed are smaller than variations originating from changes in physical parameters, such as heat transfer and mixing parameters.

The main losses in internal combustion engines are the heat losses to the cylinder walls and to the exhaust gases. Adiabatic, or low heat rejection engines, have received interest and been studied in several periods in history. Typically, however, these attempts have had to be abandoned when problems with lubrication and overheating components could not be solved satisfactorily. The latest years have seen the emerging of low temperature combustion in engines as well as computational powers that provide new options for highly efficient engines with low heat rejection. Stochastic Reactor Models (SRM) are highly efficient in modeling the kinetics decided low temperature combustion in HCCI and PPC engines. Containing the means to define the variations within the cylinder while employing detailed chemistry, micro mixing and heat transfer modeling, the interaction between heat transfer, exhaust gas energy and the combustion process can be studied with the SRM.

Temperature stratification plays an important role in HCCI combustion. The onsets of auto-ignition and combustion duration are sensitive to the temperature field in the engine cylinder. Numerical simulations of HCCI engine combustion are affected by the use of wall boundary conditions, especially the temperature condition at the cylinder and piston walls. This paper reports on numerical studies and experiments of the temperature field in an optical experimental engine in motored run conditions aiming at improved understanding of the evolution of temperature stratification in the cylinder. The simulations were based on Large-Eddy-Simulation approach which resolves the unsteady energetic large eddy and large scale swirl and tumble structures. Two dimensional temperature experiments were carried out using laser induced phosphorescence with thermographic phosphors seeded to the gas in the cylinder.

The concept of Partially Premixed Combustion (PPC) in internal combustion engines has shown to yield high gross indicated efficiencies, but at the expense of gas exchange efficiencies. Most of the experimental research on partially premixed combustion has been conducted on compression ignition engines designed to operate on diesel fuel and relatively high exhaust temperatures. The partially premixed combustion concept on the other hand relies on dilution with high exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) rates to slow down the combustion which results in low exhaust temperatures, but also high mass flows over cylinder, valves, ports and manifolds. A careful design of the gas exchange system, EGR arrangement and heat exchangers is therefore of utter importance. Experiments were performed on a heavy-duty, compression ignition engine using a fuel consisting of 80 volume % 95 RON service station gasoline and 20 volume % n-heptane.

Heat loss is one of the greatest energy losses in engines. More than half of the heat is lost to cooling media and exhaust losses, and they thus dominate the internal combustion engine energy balance. Complex processes affect heat loss to the cylinder walls, including gas motion, spray-wall interaction and turbulence levels. The aim of this work was to experimentally compare the heat transfer characteristics of a stepped-bowl piston geometry to a conventional re-entrant diesel bowl studied previously and here used as the baseline geometry. The stepped-bowl geometry features a low surface-to-volume ratio compared to the baseline bowl, which is considered beneficial for low heat losses. Speed, load, injection pressure, swirl level, EGR rate and air/fuel ratio (λ) were varied in a multi-cylinder light duty engine operated in conventional diesel combustion (CDC) mode.

In this study, an investigation was made on a heavy duty diesel engine using both conventional diesel combustion mode and a partially premixed combustion (PPC) mode. A segment mesh was built up and modeled using the commercial CFD code AVL FIRE, where only the closed volume cycle, between IVC and EVO, was modeled. Both combustion modes were validated using experimental data, before a number of heat flux boundary conditions were applied. These conditions were used to evaluate the engine response in terms of engine performance and emission levels for the different percentage of heat rejection. The engine performance was measured in terms of specific fuel consumption and estimated power output, while the calculated net soot and accumulated NOx mass fractions were used for comparing the emission levels. The results showed improved efficiency for both combustion types, but only the PPC combustion mode managed that without increasing the production of NOx emissions severely.

Partially Premixed Combustion (PPC) has demonstrated substantially higher efficiency compared to conventional diesel combustion (CDC) and gasoline engines (SI). By combining experiments and modeling the presented work investigates the underlying reasons for the improved efficiency, and quantifies the loss terms. The results indicate that it is possible to operate a HD-PPC engine with a production two-stage boost system over the European Stationary Cycle while likely meeting Euro VI and US10 emissions with a peak brake efficiency above 48%. A majority of the ESC can be operated with brake efficiency above 44%. The loss analysis reveals that low in-cylinder heat transfer losses are the most important reason for the high efficiencies of PPC. In-cylinder heat losses are basically halved in PPC compared to CDC, as a consequence of substantially reduced combustion temperature gradients, especially close to the combustion chamber walls.

Recently, internal combustion engine design has been moving towards downsized, more efficient engines. One key in designing a more efficient engine is the control of heat losses, i.e., improvements of the thermodynamic cycle. Therefore, there is increasing interest in examining and documenting the heat transfer process of an internal combustion engine. A heavy-duty diesel engine was modeled with a commercial CFD code in order to examine the effects of two different gasoline fuels, and the injection strategy used, on heat transfer within the engine cylinder in a partially premixed combustion (PPC) mode. The investigation on the fuel quality and injection strategy indicates that the introduction of a pilot injection is more beneficial in order to lower heat transfer, than adjusting the fuel quality. This is due to reduced wall exposure to higher temperature gases and more equally distributed heat losses in the combustion chamber.

Partially premixed combustion (PPC) in internal combustion engine as a low temperature combustion strategy has shown great potential to achieve high thermodynamic efficiency. Methanol due to its unique properties is considered as a preferable PPC engine fuel. The injection timing to achieve methanol PPC conditions should be set very close to TDC, allowing to utilize spray-bowl interaction to further improve combustion process in terms of emissions and heat losses. In this study CFD simulations are performed to investigate spray-bowl interaction for a number of different piston designs and its impact on the heat transfer and the overall piston performance. The validation case is based on a single cylinder heavy-duty Scania D13 engine with a compression ratio 15. The operation point is set to low load 5.42 IMEPg bar with SOI -3 aTDC.

Heat transfer losses are one of the largest loss contributions in a modern internal combustion engine. The aim of this study is to evaluate the contribution of the piston bowl type and swirl ratio to heat losses and performance. A commercial CFD tool is used to carry out simulations of four different piston bowl geometries, at three engine loads with two different swirl ratios at each load point. One of the geometries is used as a reference point, where CFD results are validated with engine test data. All other bowl geometries are scaled to the same compression ratio and make use of the same fuel injection, with a variation in the spray target between cases. The results show that the baseline case, which is of a conventional diesel bowl shape, provides the best emission performance, while a more open, tapered, lip-less combustion bowl is the most thermodynamically efficient.